Poor Little Rose

Wed Dec 31, 2008 6:22 pm

My fiance and I took this house over after his sons were living in it. The house belongs to his mother, but she lives with his sister... That was long...

ANYWAY, this is the rose bush that is by the front walk way. Sad little thing, but this is also after 6 months of care and fertilization and love, so you can imagine what it looked like when we moved in... It's also winter here now, so I'm not sure if it'll do anything else until it gets warmer.

It usually only buds one at a time.

Anyone have any ideas for me? Something that might give it a little boost? I know it'll get there, it's just such a sad looking rose bush...

Sun Jan 11, 2009 7:58 pm

I'll tell you outright, I'm not a rose person. My mom grew roses when I was a teenager, but I can't say if I paid much attention. I've pretty much given up on them since I've sworn off chemical gardening, although there's a David Austin rose (either Heritage or Abraham Darby) that continues to grow and flower, despite being completely neglected, espcially this past year since I was giving preferential treatments to native and edible plants....

That said, I could hardly focus on your photos, it was so bright with the white marble chip mulch and all... My "Desert Rock/Mediterranean" garden has the same mulch, and the plants there are thriving here in NJ, but I wonder if it might not be a little too much for roses, especially in Florida summer sunshine.... :?:

I might be totally off, but that's my 2Ã‚Â¢ :wink:

Sun Jan 11, 2009 10:06 pm

Based on the size of the leaves, it might be a miniature rose. If it is, and you're expecting it to get a whole lot larger, you may be disappointed.

Sun Jan 11, 2009 10:49 pm

Oh, another thing -- for me that the marble chips made all the plants in the bed grow a lot bigger. I didn't actually test for it, but my suspicion is that the rock dust from the marble chips = lime i.e. alkaline and raised the pH of the soil -- which seemed to have worked for the stachys (lambs ears, cactus, yucca, lavender, yarrow, and false indigo, to name the ones that responded well) but perhaps not for rose?